


Full Stop.

by paeryn



Category: Young Avengers
Genre: Depression, Grief/Mourning, all the tears, it has to hurt if its to heal, not all families are made of blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-21
Updated: 2013-10-21
Packaged: 2017-12-30 01:28:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1012382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paeryn/pseuds/paeryn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been the better part of two months since their return to New York, and the surviving Young Avengers have done their best to carry on.<br/>Eli moved to Arizona to be with his mother.<br/>Kate founded a scholarship in Cassie and Jonas' name.<br/>BIlly's enrolled at NYU, in attempt to fill in the many holes in his knowledge.<br/>Teddy has taken to volunteering at local homeless shelters and soup kitchens, while he decides what might come next.<br/>And then there's Tommy...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Full Stop.

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [CrisArt_03](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/29464) by Cris-Art. 



> This started out as a very, _very_ different piece. But I just sort of let the characters tell the story here.

**B** illy Kaplan was finding himself in an all too familiar situation. He was in the hallway of a school, messenger bag dumped all over the floor around him as students stepped over him and his homework as they ran to their own classes. Of course, this wasn’t high school anymore, and there wasn’t any bullies to blame—just his own awkwardness. He had been spending too much time trying to get a read on where he needed to be that he had lost track of his feet actually getting him there and down he had went. As if _that_ had never been a problem before. The last several years could’ve been his dissertation on the perils of leaping before looking.  
He’d just gotten out of Calculus I and his head had been reeling. He’d read enough Michio Kaku and Richard Feynman to feel like he’d been prepared for what it would take for a degree in Physics—but he’d widely misjudged his readiness to achieve that goal. Math didn’t bother him so much—they were formulae, just like his spells—but the absolutely rigidity of its dictums galled him. Calculus somehow was the worst of it.

He’d been on his way to his next class, a palate cleanser by the name of Theories and Methods in the Study of Religion, when his right foot had followed far too quickly his left and he’d wobbled to the ground while scattering every single piece of paper in his bag across the hallway.

“Ugh, let me help,” he heard a feminine voice above him.

“Sorry, I was trying to get to class and I just—” he looked up and the first thing he saw were placid gentian eyes that seemed to curl up at the corners as she smiled. Her hair was a brighter brown than his, but she had died the tips purple and pink. She was wearing a navy blue cape with brass buttons, something he’d imagine was a cross between a Pan Am stewardess and a woolen military trench coat. 

“First day?”

“What…why…”Billy pushed his hair out of his face, “is it that obvious?”

“I’m Iris,” she answered with a shrug, “Iris Buchanan. And yeah, you have the look of the lost. What room are you trying to find?

“Wolfson’s religion class, in…” Billy trailed off as he realized that his schedule was on one of the papers now haphazardly recollected in his bag.

“318B. Down the hall to the left, three doors down,” Iris finished for him happily, her turquoise nails playing with the brass buttons on her coat.

“Wow, uh..thanks. I’m Billy.”

She smiled sweetly, her bubblegum pink lipstick spreading wide to reveal an almost perfect white smile. “Well, Billy. I hope the rest of your day goes better.” She dusted off the tops of his shoulders as if somehow squaring him off, and wandered down the hallway in the same direction of his class. 

Shaking his head as if to shake off the surreal quality of the last few minutes, Billy picked up two stray papers he’d missed, snapped his bag tight, and turned left. Three doors down, he found his class pretty much full and settled into one of the few seats towards the back of the room. He was both relieved and a little let down that Iris wasn’t in the class with him. Wolfson stood at the front of the room, his brown hair a tad wild and tousled. He wore narrow golden-framed glasses, a maroon shirt, and a pair of black chords. In short, he totally looked the part.

A few minutes later, the professor introduced himself as he walked to the door and shut it, signaling class was about to begin. The syllabus was handed out, and Billy cringed. This class looked like it was going to cover everything he hoped—but the depth of reading, combined with the Calculus…

“And this is my TA, which makes her, of course, your TA, Iris.”

“Hello everyone,” said a very familiar voice. Billy looked up from his desk and, sure enough, the same kind--eyed woman that had helped him in the hall had emerged from behind the divider at the far side of the room and now held his GPA in her hands. Was it his imagination, or did she just wiggle a hello with her fingers to the class the moment she saw him look up? This wasn’t going well. Oh, how did he think he was ready for this?

When class ended about an hour later with a reading assignment longer than he’d normally been assigned in a week at his high school, Billy just let out a sigh and sat there as one by one, the student cleared out of the classroom. Billy stood up slowly, gathered his binder and put it in his bag, and started for the door when Iris stopped him with a hand on his arm.

“Dr Wolfson, this is Billy…”

“Kaplan. Billy Kaplan, sir.”

“Billy and I bumped into each other on the way to class and he was telling me how much he was looking forward to working you this semester. He was _probably_ sincere, since he had no idea who I was.”

“Well, Billy. It’s nice to meet you. Hopefully, as the semester moves on, I'll feel similarly about working with you.“ The professor chuckled and walked out of the room, a bag similar to Billy’s hanging at his side.

"He liked you," Iris beamed, as her whole body from ankle to head leaned forward as she spoke, before she stood at attention again with a hop.

"Thanks…" Billy said, not really sure what he could add to what was already an awkward situation that wasn’t going to make it worse. 

Thankfully, that was one problem he didn’t need to worry at, because at that precise moment—and with no spellwork on his behalf—his cell-phone began ringing off all too loudly:

       
_If I gave you the sky_   


       
_If I laid down my life_   


       
_Would you believe me then?_   


       
_If I promised to change_   


       
_If I carried the blame_   


       
_Would you believe me then?_   


“Sorry!” Billy whispered as he pressed the button to answer, as grateful as he was mortified. 

“Billy?” he heard Teddy’s voice ask. 

“Who else would be answering my phone? What’s up?"

Teddy was quiet for a moment. “Did..has your class finished?”

“Yeah, I was just standing here chatting with the TA afterwords. I was a total klutz and tripped up the stairs on my way to class and she swept in and saved the day. I’m pretty sure we’re going to be besties.”

Iris snorted back a laugh at that.

Teddy’s voice was hollow as he spoke softly, “You need to come home.”

“I still have one more class, Ted, and then I’ll come straight back,” Billy asked, just a little irked. He’d been enrolled in college one day, actually just two out of three classes of one day, and already…

“Billy, Teddy repeated, “You need to come home. Now.”

“Teddy, you’re scaring me. What happened?”

Only silence and what at first Billy thought was a small trace of static answered. 

“Teddy…is that crying I hear in the background?”

In a low voice, Teddy acknowledged, “It’s Tommy.”

“Why is Tommy crying?” Billy asked a bit too loudly, tears forming unbidden in the corners of his own eyes.

“He’s been running around pretty much nonstop since we got back.”

“I know, but…”

“You don’t know, Billy. But that’s OK. He’s been trying to be a hero all by himself, trying to keep it all going. And today, it was finally all too much. What you need to know is that he’s here now. And you need to be, too.”  
Billy turned his face away from the phone as he sniffled and rubbed the water out of his eyes.

“I’m leaving now,” Billy said as he shuffled his feet. He heard the connection break, and he slid his phone into his pocket.

Iris stood there, her eyes more concerned than inquisitive, her arms crossed below her chest as if she was holding something in.

"I’m sorry, but—"

"Just go, Billy. Those boys need you. Besides--pop quiz on Wednesday!" she smirked, jiggling a sheaf of papers in her hand before she placed them in her bag.

Billy nodded, and bolted out of the room. He fled down the hallway, down the stairs, and onto the quad. It was going to take too long to get home through any conventional means. He found a quiet spot hidden by a few bushes and sat down on the concrete barrier that surrounded them, his back to the greenery, and closed his eyes. Closed his eyes and _wanted_ in a way he’d promised himself he never would again.

       
_IwanttogohomeIwanttogohomeIwanttogohomeIwanttogohome_   


If any human eyes had born witness, they would’ve seen the teen start to glow an etheric , coruscating blue before he vanished with a loud POP as air rushed in to fill the void he once inhabited.

A similar POP appeared moments later outside a brownstone in Chelsea, as Billy took in a deep breath. Black and red spots danced in front of his eyes. Teleportation had never bothered him before; It was one of the first and easiest spells he had learned. Closing his eyes tightly and controlling his breathing for a moment enabled most of the spots to fade to nothing, as well as help him center himself for whatever was affecting Tommy on the other side of the door.

He walked inside and through the lobby, heading towards the apartment. When he got there, Teddy opened the door before Billy even had a chance to try the knob.

“That was…fast,”Teddy said, perplexed, and then concerned as he saw Billy sway a bit as he stood.

“I’m fine. I got here as fast as I could. Where’s Tommy? What happened?”

Teddy reached out and grabbed Billy’s forearm by the elbow, squeezing it in comfort.

“He’s in the dining room, by the window. It’s…it’s bad, Billy.”

“I don’t under—”

“Just talk to him. I tried. But you’re his twin. Just listen.”

Billy took a deep breath and let it out before he dropped his bag on a chair and headed into the living room. There wasn’t much light in the room, just the spillover from the arch into the kitchen and the feeble remains of the outer halo of light from the den. But that light was enough for him to make out a boy, a man, crouched by the picture window, his shock of white hair shaking as raw sobs broke out of his throat. Billy knelt down in front of his twin, wrapping his arms around him. Tommy reached between Billy’s arms and clutched onto Billy’s jacket, his face crushing into Billy’s chest as he cried for over half an hour.

Between choked back sobs, Billy eventually heard his brother between gasps of breath utter, “I’m so sorry…sorry..”

“What’s going on, Tommy?”

“I..I thought if I ran fast enough, if I did enough…it would help. But nothing was enough. Everywhere I went, every time I tried this hole just got bigger and bigger, so I’d run faster, try to—”

Cutting him off, Billy asked gently, “When was the last time you slept, Tommy?”

“I sleep,” Tommy sniffled, momentarily getting a reprieve before he convulsed in tears once more. “I sleep and I dream of them, begging me to help them. But I don’t know how. Not on my own. Not by myself.” 

Now Billy was starting to see what Teddy had meant. Somehow, Tommy had taken it upon himself to—dear God, no wonder. “Oh god, Tommy. Why didn’t you say something? It’s been weeks.”

“I thought if I was just fast enough…but I’m not. No matter how many people I help, no matter how many places I try to be in, I can never make up…”

“Make up what?” Billy was terrified to ask.

“…for letting them die…for letting them die, Billy, Oh god…When you all found me I had pretty much given up. There was the drugs, and the tests, and then more drugs, and more tests for what felt like years, and then suddenly there you were, all of you, saying I wasn’t a freak at all, but I was some sort of _hero_ …” Tommy wailed as he dissolved again into broken, ugly sobs.

“And you were! You have been!” Billy exclaimed, as his brother’s tears brought his own pouring down his face. How had he never noticed this? How had they all been this blind?

“What sort of hero lets the only people who ever wanted him around, who ever lo—loved him—?”

“There was nothing you could’ve done, Tommy. Doom was channeling the entire Life Force! Even Wanda and I couldn’t do anything that stopped him from ta-taking Cassie away from us…” and now Billy was openly crying too, clutching his brother just as tightly.

After several minutes Tommy pulled himself away, giving himself enough space to look Billy directly in the eye, “You’re not me, Billy. You saw what I did to the Skrulls who tried to take Teddy away. Whatever they did to me at that institution, what sort of monster did they make me into? What sort of person can do that? What sort of person _doesn’t_ do that when his family is about to be killed?”

“Tommy, what are you saying?”

“I’m saying that I could’ve killed them, Billy,” Tommy shot back fiercely. “Doom, Nate, the both of them. For trying to take away our family? I could’ve vibrated them until they just burned into ashes.”

Billy was horrified. “Why would you say something like that?”

“BECAUSE I COULD’VE SAVED THEM!” Tommy cried out at the top of his lungs, from the bottom of his heart. 

Quietly, as Tommy collapsed beside him, Billy murmured to him, “They wouldn’t have wanted that, Tommy. Not even Cassie at her angriest. They wouldn’t want that darkness in you, not for them.” 

As his keening started to subside, Tommy whispered, barely perceptibly, “I…I failed them.”

“No one failed anyone,” said Teddy gently, as he knelt down and stretched to wrap both twins in a tight embrace, his tears joining with the others. “We did what we could.”

Tommy’s voice turned dark with loss.

“We failed them, and they made us Avengers.”

**Author's Note:**

> I know some folks are alarmed by how dark/angsty some of the YARBB claims have turned out--I don't look at this piece this way. Instead, I tend to look at it as a study of catharsis--and how it changes people differently.
> 
> Lastly, I owe a considerable debt to [Casey Stratton](http://open.spotify.com/artist/5Y3OawsA5QtIZzqBMyQkpY), whose work was a big influence on this piece, especially his debut _Standing at the Edge_ and his _Divide_ double-CD. In fact, Mr. Stratton's work was playing often throughout all my claims for YARBB. So if you liked any of my fic, give him a listen!


End file.
